Hi Guys.
I live in a forest where my nearest clear LOS for a dish is about 500 ft from the receiver. I would like to have a DirecTv HD setup with a Slimline 5 LNB dish installed.

Is a 500' ft Dish-Receiver distance possible without loss of signal? If so, what would it take to make it work, and what is it likely to cost beyond the standard installation? I can bury the cables myself (should they be in conduit?) and there is a power supply near the antenna end in case I need to power an amplifier. Thanks for any help. Loel

Hi Guys.
I live in a forest where my nearest clear LOS for a dish is about 500 ft from the receiver. I would like to have a DirecTv HD setup with a Slimline 5 LNB dish installed.

Is a 500' ft Dish-Receiver distance possible without loss of signal? If so, what would it take to make it work, and what is it likely to cost beyond the standard installation? I can bury the cables myself (should they be in conduit?) and there is a power supply near the antenna end in case I need to power an amplifier. Thanks for any help. Loel

Click to expand...

200' for the Slimeline is max. After that it runs into a voltage problem and can't switch properly. 500' I don't think you could even do it with RG11 and amps.

If you do a tower you will probably have to hire a retail installer to do the install, as most techs wont touch it.

I read a few blogs about amplifiers, as I started with a wild idea that three or four amplifiers spread along each line at intervals could do the trick. Now it looks like I would need multiple amplifiers for each of the five LNB lines, and every amplifier could introduce more noise to the system. It sounds like this idea is not to be.

Thanks for all of the great help. It has saved me a lot of head-scratching and also the money I would have spent trying to make it work. All the best, Loel

Thanks for the interesting idea!. The remote location with good line of sight is actually a workshop around 400 ft away from my house. The shop has power and a suitable place to put the receiver. If I ran co-ax cables to the house for each of two television sets, how would I be able to control the receiver/s from the house? Loel

Pub Member / Supporter

I know that there are people who have 500 ft runs with DirecTV. If I were going to do this, I would try the following.
First, use an SWM dish not a regular one. It will support up to 8 tuners on a single cable back to the house. SWM has the advantage that it does not rely on the signalling voltage to select the correct satellite, and also uses frequencies lower than regular DirecTV so any signal attenuation due to long runs is reduced.
Second, use RG11 cable. Expensive but has less signal loss.
Third, you will need an SWM amplifier. Sonora LA141R SWM8 Line Amp 14 dB gain 54 to 3500 MHz w/ Sub Band Return 2 to 40 MHz w/ External Power Port (LA141R) - Sonora - LA141R - LA141R - swm8 amp swm 8 amp swim8 amp swim 8 amp mfh2 LA141 LA141r LA141 r KA KU KA/KU LA-141r Solid Signal says 250ft but this is very conservative. People have run the SWM without the amplifier at 200 ft or more, even with RG6. Using the amp with RG11 gives you a very good chance of getting to 400ft plus.
You should put the SWM power inserter for the dish in the workshop, then you won't have any problem with power drop to the SWM dish. All you will be concerned about is making sure the signal gets to and from the dish.

At this sort of distance there are no guarantees but the SWM config has IMHO the best chance of success.

Pub Member / Supporter

As a follow-up. You will need to ask Sonora what is the best config for the power inserter and the amp. The amp takes its power from the cable. With the power inserter at the workshop, the best place for powering the dish, there will be significant voltage drop back to the house location if you put the amp there. Putting the amp at the workshop, between the PI and the dish, solves that problem. And it's more logical to put the amp at the dish anyway, because it gives you the best signal-to-noise ratio.

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